May 14, 2004

Have you been disgraced?

"Like you, I have been disgraced from what I've seen on TV, what took
place in the prison," President Bush said yesterday during a campaign
visit to West Virginia where he was discussing education. Sources using
AP generally reported "disgraced from"; some others had "disgraced about";
a few reported "disgraced by". But never mind the preposition. what no
news sources have pointed out is that the President's ungainly piece of
unscripted commentary about Abu Ghraib was surely uttered by mistake.
In groping through his mental lexicon for that past participle he hit the
wrong verb.

I, at least, am convinced that disgraced couldn't have been the
word he was after. There are at least three reasons: (1) it makes
no sense, since Bush is not personally amd directly in disgrace over this
(no one says he
helped wire up prisoners or unleash dogs on them); (2) it would not
be to the point (this isn't about his shame or loss of standing in
society); and (3) even if some people thought it were
all about him
being shamed, Bush makes it a paramount principle of his administration
that no one ever admits to shame about America (I doubt that
any president would allow talk of America or the presidency having been
disgraced, certainly not in an election year).

No, Bush fumbled his words once again. Stumbling around between saying
"I was disgusted" (or perhaps "dismayed" or "disturbed") and "It was a
disgrace" (or "It was disgraceful"),
he tripped over the dis- words, picked up the wrong one,
and blurted out "I was disgraced." One NPR reporter (Don Gonyea, May 14,
2004) talked about this being the strongest
condemnation yet. It wasn't. Perhaps one should
say that the President
of the United States ought to feel indirectly disgraced by the revelations
about what happened in Abu Ghraib on his watch;
perhaps we Americans all should.
But I am absolutely certain that the President himself did not mean any
such thing. Being disgusted (or dismayed or disturbed) is quite different
from being disgraced by an event; to be disgraced is to have an event
reflect badly on you personally -- it has to bring shame down upon you.